Problem with RTL8178

[Dale Dellutri]

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 4:44 AM, Jonathan Allen
<jonathan at barumtrading.co.uk> wrote:
> I have an old laptop that got upgraded this week from WinXP to F14 after a
> massive virus/trojan hit :-(
>
> The laptop has the Realtek RTL8178 wireless chipset and did wireless fine in
> WinXP.  Although it can see the wireless network fine, it won't connect in
> F14.
>
> I downloaded the F16 Live CD and the wireless works and connects perfectly,
> so whatever was wrong with the RTL8178 stuff has been fixed between F14 and
> F16.  However, as far as this laptop is concerned, F16 has downgraded to
> Gnome3, which the laptop can't run.
>
> The choices seem to be:
>
>   a. F16 without Gnome 3
>
>   b. back-fitting the working RTL8178 stuff into the (otherwise fine)
>       F14 installation
>
> Recommendations or instructions?

I'd recommend F16 with XFCE.

Install XFCE and then change or create /etc/sysconfig/desktop to:

$ cat /etc/sysconfig/desktop
PREFERRED=/usr/bin/startxfce4

Or just re-install the system from the F16 Live XFCE CD,
which is what I did.

I've been using this combo on my Dell Latitude E6410 and an older
Dell Latitude D630, and I'm very pleased with it.

-- 
Dale Dellutri